Shelby County Election Commission Halts Plans for Schools Vote

(Shelby County, TN) The Shelby County Election Commission unanimously voted to halt plans to move forward with requests from suburban Shelby County cities and towns about creating new school districts.

The elections would have allowed citizens to vote on whether to raise the sales tax by a half-cent in order to pay for new suburban school districts.

The planning for these new districts began after the recent vote to merge Memphis and Shelby County Schools.

However, an opinion released Tuesday by Tennessee Attorney General Robert Cooper said the suburbs’ plans were not legal because they had to wait for the merger to be completed first.

In his opinion Cooper said, “…a municipality in Shelby County can take no action, which would include the holding of a referendum, to establish a school district until from and after the beginning of the 2013-14 school year, assuming the transition is complete by that date.”